Al D'Amato
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Alfonse Marcello D'Amato (born August 1, 1937) is a former New York politician. A Republican, he served as United States Senator from New York from 1981 to 1999 (when he lost his seat to U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, a Democrat).
D'Amato was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. He is a graduate of Chaminade High School, Syracuse University, and Syracuse Law School. He is a brother of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity. His political career started with the Nassau County Republican Party, and he held the appointive position of Public Administrator of Nassau County, where he was responsible for managing the assets of county residents who died without wills. He was first appointed and then elected Receiver of Taxes of Hempstead, New York. He left this office to become a town supervisor in Hempstead and in 1977 he was elected presiding supervisor.
As a rather obscure candidate, he then defeated incumbent Sen. Jacob Javits in the 1980 Republican primary election, taking advantage of Javits' 1979 diagnosis of generally fatal amytrophic lateral sclerosis. Javits nevertheless pursued the seat on the Liberal Party ticket, splitting the left-wing vote in ordinarily liberal New York with Democratic Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman and leading to D'Amato's 45% plurality victory. This victory is largely credited to his campaign manager, Arthur J. Finkelstein.
D'Amato drew the nickname Senator Pothole for his delivery of "constituent services," helping citizens with their individual cases. Many New Yorkers meant the nickname as a pejorative.
Senator D'Amato also hold the record for the second and seventh longest filibusters ever recorded in the United States Senate. He is remembered for his unique and rather comical filibusters. In 1986, a filibuster he conducted against a military bill lasted 23 hours, 30 minutes and he was known for reading the District of Columbia phonebook during a filibuster. On another occasion he once filibustered a bill that would have caused the loss of 750 jobs in upstate New York by singing "South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)"
Senator D'Amato is also remembered for using a poster of a "Taxasaurus Rex" he then wildly stabbed the poster with an oversized pencil.
He was a member of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST) which was set up in September 1989 to review and report on aviation security policy in the light of the sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988.
While he was in office, he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and was a member of the Senate Finance Committee. As a member of the latter, he championed the cause of Holocaust survivors trying to recover relatives' funds from accounts in Swiss banks.
D'Amato is divorced from his first wife, with whom he has four children. He has dated several well-known personalities, including entertainment television reporter Claudia Cohen. On July 18, 2004 he married Katuria Elizabeth Smith.
D'Amato was known for being fairly conservative, a reflection of then conservative-leaning Nassau County, yet very popular among New York's liberal voters. He strongly supported the conservative positions of his party on "law and order" issues such as capital punishment and harsh penalties for drug offenses. On some issues he agreed with the opposition: in 1993 D'Amato was one of only three Republicans to vote in favor of allowing gays to serve openly in the U.S. military. In 1996 he was among the minority of Republicans to vote to extend federal protections against discrimination in hiring to homosexuals. On labor issues too he frequently sided with Democrats. His 1998 loss was attributed to a lack of support among moderate voters in New York City, where opponent Charles Schumer was a Representative. Another factor contributing to his loss was his labeling of Rep. Schumer as a "putz-head," which means "fool" or "penis-head" in Yiddish. This was ironic on several levels: first, D'Amato had previously enjoyed considerable Jewish support because of his strong pro-Israel stance, as well as his efforts to help Holocaust survivors. Second, D'Amato won in 1992 for the same reason he lost in 1998; his 1992 opponent, then-attorney general Robert Abrams, called D'Amato a "fascist," which people (including D'Amato himself) interpreted as an ethnic slur because D'Amato is Italian. After his defeat, he became a correspondent for George Magazine until it ceased publication in 2001, and was also a commentator on Fox News. He is now managing director of Computer Associates.
D'Amato's decline may also have mirrored that of Nassau County's Republicans. In 2001, after years of alleged scandal and financial mismanagement, Republicans lost control of the county legislature for the first time in 40 years, and Democrat Thomas Suozzi was elected County Executive.
[edit] Controversies
D'Amato is also known for his public controversies and brash style. After a series of investigations in 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee reprimanded D'Amato for allowing his brother Armand, a lobbyist, to use office stationery to help solicit million-dollar Navy contracts for Unisys. Armand D'Amato was convicted on 7 of the 24 counts of mail fraud in May 1993. A federal appeals court reversed Armand D'Amato's mail fraud conviction, finding insufficient evidence against him. Al D'Amato attributes William Weld, at the time a federal prosecutor, for an overzealous prosecution against Armand.
During the Don Imus radio program on April 4, 1995, he used a mock Japanese accent to impersonate Lance Ito, a Japanese American judge overseeing the ongoing O. J. Simpson trial (Ito has a characteristically American accent). He later apologized on the Senate floor for his comments.
In 1994, he insulted Betsy McCaughey Ross, the Republican candidate for New York Lieutenant Governor; he joked that in order to get an endorsement for her running mate, George Pataki, she should have sex with New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who had endorsed Mario Cuomo.
In October 1998, D'Amato was criticized for insulting Congressman Jerry Nadler. According to USAToday, D'Amato "referred to the heavyset Nadler as 'Congressman Waddler.' He also did a physical imitation of Nadler, D-N.Y., waddling like a duck." [1] D'Amato subsequently apologized, saying, "It was a poor attempt at humor, and I was wrong, and I apologized to him."
[edit] References
[edit] Electoral history
- 1998 Race for U.S. Senate
- Chuck Schumer (D), 54%
- Al D'Amato (R) (inc.), 44%
- 1992 Race for U.S. Senate
- Al D'Amato (R) (inc.), 49%
- Robert Abrams (D), 48%
- 1986 Race for U.S. Senate
- Al D'Amato (R) (inc.), 58%
- Mark Green (D), 41%
- 1980 Race for U.S. Senate
- Al D'Amato (R), 45%
- Elizabeth Holtzman (D), 44%
- Jacob Javits (Lib.) (inc.), 11%
| Preceded by: Jacob K. Javits |
U.S. Senator (Class 3) from New York 1981–1999 Served alongside: Daniel Patrick Moynihan |
Succeeded by: Chuck Schumer |
| Chairmen of the National Republican Senatorial Committee |
|---|
| Bridges • Brewster • Dirksen • Goldwater • Dirksen • Goldwater • Morton • Murphy • Tower • Dominick • Stevens • Packwood • Heinz • Packwood • Lugar • Heinz • Boschwitz • Nickles • Gramm • D'Amato • McConnell • Frist • Allen • Dole |
